Robert Altman thrilled audiences with movies that seemed real and alive. Here's a quick list of ten of his best.

"The Long Goodbye" adapted a hard-boiled detective novel by Raymond Chandler by updating it to 1973. Suddenly the nourish Philip Marlowe is reincarnated into 1970s everyman Elliot Gould - but he's still facing the same challenges. He's still tracking down a missing friend and solving the crime, but Altman also captures how the world really was changing in 1973. This makes the detective story into something more.

"Nashville" was called the greatest movie of the decade by the New Yorker's Pauline Kael. This is the Altman people remember, creating a sprawling film that cuts between over a dozen characters, intertwining their stories into a remarkable whole. Its premise is a Presidential candidate passing through Nashville, Tennessee. In a way it shows that America was still haunted by the Kennedy assassination, but along the way the film discovers all the lurking tensions between the country singers, the political operatives, and the 70s hipsters (including Jeff Goldblum).

"Short Cuts" was a perfect vehicle for Altman's special style. Raymond Carver had written some amazing short stories about the private pains of couples in Los Angeles. Altman co-authored a screenplay which wove them together into another broad film following many different characters and stories. The huge cast included Jack Lemmon, Lily Tomlin, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Christopher Penn. But while Carver's stories were always unforgettable, Altman manages to capture the same intensity in a movie.

"Countdown" is a one of Altman's earliest films, released just one year before the first moonwalk in 1969. It captures a disturbing story about an astronaut who faces all the ordinary pressures of a bureaucracy and his personal dramas on earth. When the astronaut ends up alone in space, there's a real question as to whether he'll be able to overcome the earth-bound pressures that weigh on his decision-making, even as he faces the prospect of being the first man on the moon.

"Secret Honor" imagines a story about Richard Nixon in the 1980s. Now living in disgrace, a hard-drinking Nixon looks back on his life. Real biographical details flesh out our understanding of Nixon, the man. But his bitterness at the country is only compounded by the movie's surprise "alternate history" - that Nixon himself had a secret agenda in recording the Watergate tapes!

"Popeye"

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